After a 30-year, off-and-on battle with metastatic breast cancer, Australian-born actress and singer Olivia Newton-John died at age 73. Best known for her role as Sandy in the 1978 movie musical “Grease,” Newton-John also hit the music charts with singles like “Physical” and “Magic.”
According to CNN, Newton-John was first diagnosed with breast cancer in 1992, after which she underwent a partial mastectomy, followed by chemotherapy and breast reconstruction . The cancer went into remission but returned in 2013 as a tumor in her shoulder. The cancer resurfaced again in 2017 as a tumor at the base of the singer’s spine.
That length of time between recurrences is not uncommon with breast cancer, says CU Cancer Center member Nicole Christian, MD, especially low-grade estrogen-positive breast cancer, which tends to be less aggressive. Prolonged periods of healthy remission of the disease, only to see it return elsewhere in the body…
